Improvement in bee-hives



UNITED .STATES PATENT OFFICE.

LEONARD A. BLAISDELL, 0F WESTFIELD, MAINE.

IMPROVEMENT IN BEE-HIVES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 155,137., dated September 22, 1874 application filed July 10, 1874.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, LEONARD A. BLAIS- DELL, of Westfield, in the county of Aroostook, State of Maine, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Bee-Hives, of which the following is a description sufficiently full, clear, and exact to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which my invention appertains to make and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawing forming part of this specification, in Whichv Figure l is an isometrical perspective qview of my improved hive; Fig. 2, a vertical section of the same, taken on a line through the center from front to rear; Fig. 3, an isometrica] perspective view of one of the boxes, and Fig. 4 a view of a crate.

Like letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the different gures of the drawmg.

My invention relates more especially to that class of bee-hives in which slat boxes are employed; and consists in a novel construction and arrangement of the parts, as hereinafter more fully set forth and claimed, by which a simpler, more economical, and cheaper hive of this character is produced than is now in common use.

It is Well known to all practical apiarists that many bee-hives consist merely of an ordinary box or house about sixteen inches square, provided with a perforation or door near the bottom for the entrance of the bees, and with one or two small boxes set on top of the main hive, narrow elongated openings being made in the top of the hive, and in the bottoms of the boxes, connecting the interiors of the same, and forming passage-ways for the bees. In hives so constructed the bees will work well until the hive is nearly full of honey, when they are liable to remain idle for several days at a time, frequently refusing to go up into the boxes at all; but Where the latter is not the case, and the boxes are filled with honey, when the full boxes are removed and replaced by an empty one, in the usual manner, they will sometimes refuse to work for a long time, perhaps in the best part of the honey season, thus causing a great deal of annoyance and loss.

My invention is designed to obviate these difficulties and obj ections and to th at end I construct the hive with a series of small interiorlyarranged boxes provided with thin slats, the boxes being used in combination with feeding-troughs of peculiar construction, and with racks, the whole being arranged as hereinafter described.

In Fig. l, A is the body of the hive, consisting of an ordinary square box provided with the hinged door B. N ear the door of the hive, and so as to be easily accessible from without, I place the feeding-troughs D D, arranged in vertical supports, one above the other, as shown in Figs. l and 2. These troughs are wedge-shaped, being Wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, and, excepting the lower one, are provided with notches n n n, said troughs being intended for holding the sirup or melted sugar with which the bees are fed in the early spring and out of the honey season. In filling the troughs, the sirup is poured into the upper trough, owin'g over, through the notch in that, into the next trough below, and so on through the whole'series until all of the troughs are full. This construction and arrangement of the troughs economizes space and prevents the great Waste of food which occurs when each trough has to be filled separately.

In Fig. 3, a honey or comb box is represented, having closed sides C C, the top and bottom being provided with slats i z', leaving the open spaces g g, the ends of the box being closed with glass slides a a. This ligure represents a box of the general character used in my improved hive, although I vary the construction .somewhat in accordance with the number of boxes and the location the box is to occupy. For instance, the boxes in the upper tier of the hive represented in the drawings are closed on two sides and at the top, the bottoms only being slotted. Those in the middle tier are closed at the sides, and slotted both at the top and bottom, and those inthe botthat a hive of any required size may be made on my improved plan, the boxes being so constructed and arranged as to open into each other, and to aii'ord-i'1ee access to the feedingtroughs.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim is- The bee-hive described, consisting of the.

box A, feeding-troughs D D, slat boxes G, and rack E, Fig. 4, constructed and arranged substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

LEONARD A. BLAISDELL. Vitn esses:

NEWeoi/n?. E. SMALL, WILLIAM B. DAY. 

